Arizona Bound

We spent two days at home on our return from Barbados, and on Friday, February 10 we woke to
 -27 degree C temperatures. So we packed up our new van, Maxine, got a boost from our friend Ian to get her started, and headed down Albert Street. We drove until after dark, through a snow storm, and spent our first night in Sheridan WY.  We woke to snowy mountain views and continued on our way south.

Mountains around Sheridan

Our second day of travel took us through Wyoming and into Colorado.  As we moved south the temperature rose.  We spent the second night in Grand Junction, Colorado.  On day three we drove through a section of Utah, and hit snow again.  The drive from Moab south to Monument Valley was very slow because of a blizzard with very slippery and snow covered roads.

Maxine with monuments in the background

Monument in Utah

We arrived in Sedona, Arizona on Sunday in time for supper with our friend Carol.  Monday we went on a long hike on a trail near the house Carol rents.

Arch on Soldier's Pass Trail

Looking out from the arch

Red rocks typical of the Sedona area

Touring St. Vincent

We were very fortunate to have Mineva and Dawn show us around St. Vincent during the week we were there.  One day Mineva had to go up the western side of the island to give a talk, so she took us along and sent us off with her driver, Judell, to visit the site where Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed.

One of the sets from the movie

View of the bay at the "Pirates" location

We also did a bit of sight seeing along the coast and visited the waterfall at Wallilabou Park.

Wallilabou Falls

Coast on Caribbean side

The following day Dawn took us on a tour up the Atlantic side of the island.  We saw the work being done on the new international airport runway, and visited Rawacou, a park where they have built a swimming 'lagoon' because the undertow is so strong it isn't possible to swim in the ocean.

Dawn took us to her home the following day and she and two of her friends made a lunch of traditional Vincentian foods - pumpkin soup, salad, stewed chicken with eddos, dasheen, breadfruit, green bananas and yams.

Dawn, Marina and Diedre setting the lunch table

We really enjoyed going to the open air market in Kingstown and talking to the vendors.  One vendor, Yvette, was particularly friendly and helpful, and we purchased some nutmeg and cinnamon from her.

Fish in the market in Kingstown

Yvette and Evanna in the market in Kingstown

After a week in St Vincent we went back to Barbados for two days.  Here are a few final pictures from Barbados.

Oistins near the fish fry vending area

Oistins harbour

Bequia Island

Here we are on the ferry to Bequia Island, one of the Grenadine Islands that are part of SVG (St. Vincent and the Grenadines). Evanna is on the left, then Mineva, then Nicole and finally Dawn. We spent the good part of the day on Tuesday touring the island. We had rotis for lunch, visited a turtle sanctuary and went for a swim on one of the golden sand beaches.

The ferry was a bit of a rust bucket and the sea crossing was somewhat rough due to high winds. It made for a roller coaster ride coming back to the main island at the end of the day. Who needs Disney World!?

More of St. Vincent

We spent our first night in a friendly small hotel in Kingstown, the capital of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, but it was very noisy, so we moved to the Paradise Beach Hotel on Villa beach, just a few miles east of Kingstown. This is the view of Young Island, an exclusive private resort island, from the restaurant of our hotel.

St. Vincent Markets

St. Vincent has a variety of options for purchasing goods. There are supermarkets that sell packaged foods and milk, bread etc. The large fruit and vegetable market has dozens of vendors who sell local and imported produce. There are shops that sell clothing, shoes and household appliances. And there are the street markets. This is a picture of the stalls outside the market building. They mainly sell fruits and vegetables, but there is a side street near the market that sells cheap houshold stuff made in China.

Beautiful St. Vincent

We came to St. Vincent, in part, because over the past two years Service Canada College, where Kathy used to work, has been involved in a partnership with some Caribbean countries.  Those countries sent managers of social services programs to Regina to participate in the Service Excellence training that Service Canada has been delivering to all its front line staff.  They were assessing how useful this training might be for their organizations in the Caribbean.  Three women from St. Vincent, Mineva Glasgow, Dawn Small and Nicole Joseph, attended the training in Regina and we decided to come to St. Vincent to visit them and see a bit of their country.

Mineva greeted us warmly at the airport and took us on a short whirlwind tour of Kingstown, the Botanical Gardens and Fort Charlotte.  This is the view of Kingstown and the harbour from Fort Charlotte.  There was one cruise ship in the harbour the day we arrived but we haven't seen another one since then.

Captions for Around Northern Barbados

We are still having problems posting to the blog from the iPad, so here are the captions for the pictures posted below.

The first picture was taken in a small community a bit north-east of Speightstown, which is on the west coast. These are typical Bajan houses. The second one (the small white one with peach trim) is called a chattel house. These houses originated when former slaves were allowed to build homes on the plantation land. The plantation owner had the right to evict them on short notice, so the houses had to be a movable possession. They were built out of wood rather than stone, so they could be taken apart in sections, moved to another spot on an ox-cart, and reassembled the same day. Some of them were added onto many times, but the street view always maintained the character of the original two room house.

Picture number two is of us in Barclay's Park on the east coast enjoying a picnic lunch. This park is on a beach called Cattlewash Beach as it was used by local farmers to bathe their cattle.

The third picture is the rock formation at Little Bay. The waves crashed into the rocks there with great force and spouted up through blowholes in the rock right next to this sea arch.

The last picture is of us at Marshall's Bar, a little local eatery in Bridgetown with very good food at a very low price.

That's it for Barbados, and we will post some photos from St. Vincent soon.

Around Northern Barbados